


tell me, tell me (please don't tell)

by SleeplessAnon



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 14:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13169289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleeplessAnon/pseuds/SleeplessAnon
Summary: "When they bring her to you, it's a testament to your conditioning that you don't react any further than raising an eyebrow."(it's not really a love story, but if you squint real hard there's some feels)





	tell me, tell me (please don't tell)

**Author's Note:**

> uh so after posting the latest chapter of holding onto hard times, i was like, i should write something short and happy. but then i looked at my unfinished stuff and this was here, so. welp you get short and sad instead
> 
> title and lyrics are from "Wi ing Wi ing" by Hyukoh.

_ My legs stagger with every step _

_ Today, another meaningless day goes by _

_ I believe people love those that are similar to them _

_ So there’s no chance that my heart will beat fast _

* * *

 

When they bring her to you, it's a testament to your conditioning that you don't react any further than raising an eyebrow. Still, something about the short, brown-haired former Overwatch agent in a Talon uniform incites an uneasy stirring in your abdomen. Despite all the disdain you held for her excessively bright attitude and absurd puns, the sight of her, eyes dull and expressionless,  _ sickens _ you  _ (you can’t quite fathom why it would, but it does, and you can’t fight what is). _ With nothing more than a glance, you know that, in the same way that you are no longer Amélie Lacroix, she is no longer Lena Oxton.

It ignites something akin to hatred within you, although at whom it is directed remains to be seen. Talon? Perhaps (although you think you might have always hated Talon). But it seems much more than that - a hatred at the universe itself, maybe. For being so unfair as to put a soul as clean and bright as Lena’s through an experience so devastating  _ (since when did you see her as bright and clean?). _

The dark-suited man standing to the left of her, a severe-looking man with streaks of grey running through his thinning hair, rattles off some orders, looking bored and anxious to leave. “You are given control of this new agent,” he explains, “and she will follow your orders without question.” He hands you a smooth manila folder. “All the details are enclosed,” he tells you curtly, and turns to leave, his colleague standing by for a moment longer. 

“She will be staying with you until further notice. A more spacious accommodation can be provided, given that you submit a request through the standard procedure.”

As he follows the first man away, you turn to the young woman in front of you, who remains unmoving as her eyes stare into yours. You heave out a sigh, resting your hands on your hips. 

“And just what am I to do with you,  _ chérie _ ?”

* * *

 

The first few days border on painful, and you struggle to coax more than a few single-syllable words out of her. Amélie’s memories of Lena Oxton are limited; they had scarcely interacted. However, somehow, Amélie had harbored a certain amount of affection for the poster girl of Overwatch. A small crush, perhaps  _ (it would explain many complex feelings that surged up in you when you looked at her).  _ Her marriage to Gerard had been largely a political one, and although they had formed a powerful bond, neither would deign to call it love, at least not in any romantic sense.

Tracer, however, had been an object of interest to Amélie. You can’t quite decipher whether it was anything more than a physical attraction, but regardless, you feel...odd looking at her.

“Slipstream,” the handlers had called her. She looks superficially the same, despite the change in uniform. The uniform itself is disturbingly similar to her former one, apart from the color scheme, now just made up of blacks and reds. The accelerator on her chest now gleams a dulled maroon, reminding you of an old sci-fi film, one of the ones that Gerard had collected as a pastime. Something about an odyssey of some sort. 

Her eyes, formerly a warm brown, are now tinted a deep red as well, and they seem to glint as she raises them to meet yours  _ (you swallow, but don’t look away). _ She reminds you, vaguely, of a lost puppy, so you do what you suppose is customary when encountering a stray, and offer her food.

Your fridge is well-stocked, despite the fact that you don't actually need food - Talon provides you with dietary supplements: small capsules that are to be consumed twice a day. They're hardly filling, but you don't feel hunger anyways. However, you'd recently taken up cooking as a pastime, a way to fill the boring lulls in between missions. Amelie had despised it, found it too domestic and cliche, but you find a certain level of comfort in the scent of spices. You had slowly worked your way back to eating actual food, and it felt almost like an act of rebellion against Talon when you felt sparks of taste on your tongue that first time.

As it is now, you feel too drained to really cook, so you heat up some leftover soup and slice some bread. She watches you, almost warily, as you set the meal in front of her, and after a moment’s hesitation, takes a tentative sip of soup. Her eyes brighten just a little, and she proceeds to dig in, shoveling the food in her mouth with vigor.

Watching her quietly munching away, something in you wonders if this might just turn out okay.

* * *

 

You had been concerned that she would remain as uncharacteristically docile and unmoving as she had when you first met. You needn’t have worried, because, like you, small character traits bubble to the surface as time passes. She is no longer the cheeky, optimistic woman she was before, and likely never will be, but it had been somewhat relieving to see her smile  _ (but - why? Why did something ease in you at the sight of those gleaming white teeth?)  _ even if it was a sadistic grin, even if her face was smeared in blood as she stood over the cooling bodies of her first targets. It’s jarring, to be sure, but relieving all the same. It’s the wrong personality for her, but better wrong than none at all, you suppose. 

She turns to you, grin fading to a slight smirk, and you look away.

* * *

 

(Just once, you fall into bed together. Neither of you speak of it after, but some piece of you feels as though something, just for a moment, shifted inside of you.)

* * *

 

When you’re not on missions, the two of you develop a consistent, easy pattern. You wake before her, in the early hours of the morning, when the sun first peeks out from the horizon. She pads out of her small bedroom into the living room of your shared apartment at around 8 A.M, a light-hearted quip about your sleepwear, or lack thereof, sliding off her tongue (you rarely wore more than your undergarments to bed). You set down the book you're reading (you'd been working on  _ Wuthering Heights  _ recently) and head to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. She trails behind you, usually with some snarky comment about watching you go, and the two of you work together to make breakfast, accompanied by the sound of clinking dishes and sizzling oil. 

It's comforting, in its own right. 

She's different with you, you've realized. With Talon handlers, she's the same quiet, dull woman that she was when she showed up at your door. Around her former Overwatch colleagues she's some twisted, angry version of herself, the result of months of conditioning. But when it's only the two of you, something else worms its way out of the rotting woodwork that once constituted Lena Oxton. You couldn't put a name to it if you tried, but you can't deny its presence.

(Trust, a voice at the back of your mind offers. It's trust.)

* * *

 

She's breaking down, day by day, though. Quietly but undoubtedly, Slipstream is coming apart at the seams. Day by day, she offers you the same sarcastic sneers, the same sharp glares, and yet you can see the cracks starting to form. It's simply different for her than it was for you. Lena Oxton is tied too closely to Slipstream, intertwined somewhere so deeply at the core that the torn connections still grasp at one another. And you know better than anyone else that both could not bear to exist in the same universe, let alone the same body.

Talon can see it too, and you begin to find that after routine post-mission check ups, you are sent back before her. Reconditioning, you imagine. What you can’t imagine is it having any meaningful effect. Lena Oxton was too strong to be conditioned, but not strong enough to break past the surface. Slipstream clings to her like a parasite, using her up slowly but surely. And Slipstream is a parasite that cannot live without a host.

So you are left to watch as the inner battle continues. Each time, it seems like Lena Oxton may yet win out, and each time, she is brought back to the Talon facilities and Slipstream returns. She is changing though. No longer Slipstream. No longer Lena Oxton. Yet still both, trapped in the in-between.

Somewhere, far, far in the back of your mind, something is twisting and breaking. Lena Oxton fights. 

Will Amélie?

* * *

 

She doesn’t, of course. You’ve long since passed the point of no return on that front.

But you’ve been moving forward, bit by bit. Not as obviously as Slipstream-Lena Oxton, and certainly in different ways, so Talon has yet to notice. They regulate many things about you, but they now take for granted your years of unwavering loyalty.

A novice mistake for an organization of such immense power.

And mistakes were meant to be exploited.

* * *

 

In hindsight, you were a little too presumptuous, you suppose. Lying strapped to a bed in an Overwatch facility is not how you had hoped your grand escape would end. At the very least, it beats being strapped to a bed in a Talon facility. And Slipstream-Lena Oxton lies across from you, asleep, still at war inside. So maybe that could be considered a silver lining of sorts.

Ideally, the two of you would have been free of Talon  _ and _ Overwatch. Free to just be whatever you happen to become. And hopefully, that future still lies ahead. But for the meantime, you are content to let Overwatch poke and prod, and try to “fix” you. To bide your time, as you did with Talon. 

Perhaps you are beyond salvation. Perhaps Slipstream-Lena Oxton is not. Perhaps you are destined to move on by yourself. Certainly, you’ve never been someone deserving of a happy ending. Maybe when the time comes, you’ll be alone once more. If there is a God, or gods, or anything up above, you imagine that would be the judgement passed on you.

Either way, if such a future has been decided for you, you’d rather not know anyway.

* * *

 

(but you hope it isn’t so)

 

_ Tell me, tell me, please don’t tell _

_ It’ll be better for me if I don’t feel _

_ Tell me, tell me, please don’t tell _

_ It’ll be better for me if I didn’t get to live _

**Author's Note:**

> ambiguous endings! don't you just love those. at least you got an ending for this one lol. idk what's gonna happen with my rwby fic. i worry a little that it was a little too rushed, but i'm just trying to wrap up old stuff before i move on in the new year. hope you understand :)
> 
> i promise i'll try to write something not sad next but no promises


End file.
